You'll Sing Someday
by VoodooHaze
Summary: Hortensia has many childhood memories with her other siblings, but she has only has three where she found herself alone with her brother Severus. And during all of them, she sang.


**A/N type thing: So this wasn't supposed to be posted. Ever. It's a tiny part of a 'verse I've been working on for like ten years, evolving and being torn down and rebuilt again and again. But I could never get rid of the cliché 'OC is related to blank and blank', no matter how hard I tried, stories like this one keep coming and they require the old cliché. So I wanted to keep stories like this one to myself, never to see the light of day, but some how this one kept growing and kept crying to be posted. So here we are. I give up, just let me have the self-indulgent, OC with ~family ties~ filled 'verse that keeps plaguing me. Title is a lyric from the song 'Sing' by the Dresden Dolls, the song in French is 'Sous le Ciel de Paris' by Édith Piaf, the next song is 'It's Only a Paper Moon' by Harold Arlen, and the last song is 'Black Bird' by The Beatles. Oh and of course, characters from Harry Potter belong to J. K. Rowling. Uh I used the characters initials for breaks, Severus Snape (SS) and Hortensia Snape Fuentes (HSF). Just letting you know.  
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><p><em>-So, sing<em>-

For most of her sixth summer, Hortensia spent all of June and July, and a few days in August after her birthday, in Paris. It was the first time she swam without aid, the first time her mother let her have a sip of champagne, and the first time she was able to impress all her mothers' friends with the masterful understanding she had of the French language.

Mid-August, she returned home, where another series of firsts began. It was first time she met her little brother Severus (_half_ is what her cousin Mariluisa squawked that morning, but Hortensia didn't really see the importance), it was the first time she was left unattended with a baby, and as he screamed and screamed, making her worry for the state of his tiny lungs, it was the first time she sang out loud.

'Sous le ciel de Paris

Coule un fleuve joyeux

Hum Hum

Il endort dans la nuit

Les clochards et les gueux

Sous le ciel de Paris

Les oiseaux du Bon Dieu

Hum Hum

Viennent du monde entier

Pour bavarder entre eux'

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It was her first Christmas home from Hogwarts the next time she was alone with her brother Severus, and she made him sit with her on the floor, facing her while she tried to spoon feed him Christmas pudding. When he tried to escape, she told him (in her best grown up voice) that he better do as she said or else. Then, after stuffing more in his mouth than she would ever eat, she stood and did a song and dance around him, while he tracked her movements with his eyes.

'Say it is only a canvas sky

Hanging over a muslin tree,

But it wouldn't be make believe

If you believed in me...'

At the time, she also had an unchained mischievous streak, and grabbed him by the wrists and swung him around and around, until all the Christmas pudding she fed him flew back in her face.

As he stared at her with wide, scared eyes, all she could do was laugh and run a bath for him while she cleaned up at the sink. That night she told her brother she could never be angry with him, especially not with that look on his face, although she would have to blame him for her new distaste for Christmas pudding.

'But it wouldn't be make believe

If you believed in me…'

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She was 13 when she stood by a back window, listening to the shouting coming from her father's house. She didn't even know why she stopped by, maybe just to prove Nero wrong.

_ ~"Our father doesn't care about us, he doesn't even like us! When was the last time he even said anything to you, the last time he even looked at you?" her brother shouted from across the kitchen table._

_She had come down for breakfast and informed their mum that unless whatever silly whim of hers was catered to that morning, she'd go live her father and they'd never see her again._

_Her uncle had told Hortensia that the acting out and using her father as a threat to her mother was not only silly but also annoying and she'd better cut it out before she'd be forced to eat her words. And now, with her brother telling her off, all she can taste is ash, and she couldn't remember the last time her father even glanced at her.~_

Hortensia had stomped off after that, grabbing both her wizarding and her muggle money, and set off on the long trek to her father's home.

And that is how she came to be in her current state; confused, angry, and trying to make out whatever her father was shouting at her step mother.

A loud slam from her right made her jump a foot in the air. Her eyes immediately landed on her brother, with that dumb, scared, wide-eyed look on his face. She hadn't really seen him in the last year, only for minutes at a time, but she knows that bruise on his jaw shouldn't be there.

"Hello," she said lamely, "I was in the neighborhood, and thought I'd stop by."

Severus looks back at the house then back at her. "Oh."

She can't stop staring at that bruise, "Did something happen?" She points at his jaw, and she knows it's the dumbest question she has ever asked. She doesn't know how to ask a question when she already knows the answer, it's just not something she does, asking stupid questions are for incompetent people, and she is not incompetent.

"No," he shakes his head, "nothing happened."

"Oh. Well, I should probably go. It's not polite to visit unannounced." She doesn't know what to do, how to behave, her thoughts are so chaotic and all she can think to do is turn and walk away. Then she hears it.

A quick breath and a choked back noise. She spins back around, in time to see her brother look down and shake his head.

He won't ask her to stay, but she has no trouble inviting herself, not when he has that look on his face. The sound of something breaking in the house makes her mouth move before her brain – a true rarity.

"Ice cream. I would like ice cream, and you should have some too," The last time she was here, Antonia had spotted a small parlor down on the main street, "and I won't take no for an answer, I'm your sister and you must do as I say."

He looked at her and like an obedient younger brother (something her other siblings were defiantly not) he followed her to the ice cream shop, and agreed to share a sundae with her instead of demanding his own.

The shop boy had grinned at her from behind the counter, he was older than her so she didn't let herself pay much mind, but she was thankful he was young enough to have a good radio station on.

She'd feared everyone in town were as bland and boring as she'd seen her father's neighbors to be. But still, not much color, her orange dress was the only non neutral colour in the place. Good ice cream though.

When she whispered her thoughts to her brother, he cracked a small smile and everything felt better in her world. Her father doesn't love her and she couldn't care less, the little boy with chocolate smeared on his face was the only thing in this town she cared about.

She leaned back in her seat, humming along with the song, slowly picking up the words until they slipped quietly out of her mouth.

'Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

You were only waiting for this moment to arise'


End file.
